ONS Congress, Chapter Leadership, and Business Meetings Go Virtual
To address travel restrictions from the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic while delivering important learning and resources ONS members rely on, during its March conference call the ONS Board of Directors made several decisions to host its meetings and content virtually throughout 2020.
ONS Member Receives ASCO Award for Transforming Cancer Palliative Care
Oncology Nursing Society member Betty Ferrell, PhD, MA, FAAN, FPCN, director of the division of nursing research and education at City of Hope in Duarte, CA, was one of 14 recipients of an American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) special award in April 2020. She received the Walther Cancer Foundation Palliative and Supportive Care in Oncology Endowed Award and Lecture for her work in palliative care.
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How COVID-19 Is Affecting Oncology Practice in South Korea
Oncology nurses around the world are seeing the effects of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in their practices. At my facility in South Korea, nurses’ daily routines have changed and institution-wide shifts have affected patients with cancer, too.
FDA Grants Accelerated Approval to Capmatinib for Metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
On May 6, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to capmatinib (Tabrecta™) for adult patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer whose tumors have a mutation that leads to mesenchymal-epithelial transition exon 14 skipping, as detected by an FDA-approved test. It is the first drug approval for this specific patient population and the first targeted therapy for the indication.
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Nurses Address Barriers to Care Through CoC’s Revised Standards
Many factors can affect the way patients access their care. But one thing is certain: if patients don’t get the care they need, their chances for success decline. To address barriers to cancer care, the American College of Surgeons’ Commission on Cancer (CoC) outlined specific, measurable actions that institutions must take.
Meet Your ONS Leader: Marty Polovich, PhD, RN
Get to know Martha (Marty) Polovich, PhD, RN, director-at-large on the ONS Board of Directors from 2019–2022. Marty is a part-time instructor in the Byrdine F. Lewis College of Nursing and Health Professions at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
Remodeled CAR T-Cell Therapy May Reduce Side Effects
A new type of remodeled CAR T-cell treatment is just as effective as the original therapy but may result in fewer neurologic side effects, researchers reported in Nature Medicine.
Harnessing the Abscopal Effect May Change Cancer Care
The abscopal effect is a unique phenomenon in cancer treatment that occurs when radiation shrinks untreated tumors found elsewhere in the body in addition to the targeted tumor. The effect has a long history, dating back to the 1950s, but it doesn’t commonly occur in practice and the mechanisms are not fully understood. Research has shown that combining immunotherapy with radiation increases the rate at which the abscopal effect occurs. Understanding how it appears in practice could potentially lead to new cancer treatments and a novel approach to combining immunotherapies with radiation.
Combination Immunotherapy
Immunotherapies have revolutionized the approach to cancer treatment by leveraging patients’ own immune systems to fight the disease. But the novel therapies have also brought an evolution in traditional treatment regimens through their combination with chemotherapy, radiation, targeted therapy, or even other immunotherapy drugs.
FDA Approves Daratumumab and Hyaluronidase-Fihj for Multiple Myeloma
On May 1, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved daratumumab and hyaluronidase-fihj (Darzalex Faspro™) for adult patients with newly diagnosed or relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. The product allows for subcutaneous dosing of daratumumab.